Area high school football games moved due to shortage of officials
Sep. 21—Three area high school football games have been moved up a day due to a shortage of game officials.
Biggersville (2-1) will now visit Thrasher (0-4) on Thursday in the Division 1-1A opener for both teams. East Union (1-3) will host East Webster (3-1) in a battle of 2A teams. Also, Calhoun City (0-4) visits Shannon (0-4).
Larry Riley, the District I assigning secretary for the Northeast Mississippi Football Officials Association, said the shortage is partly due to the season being a week shorter than usual.
"We've had to have help coming in from District 4 and District 2 a couple of other Fridays so far this year," Riley said. "What they did down there at the (Mississippi High School) Activities Association is they shortened the season by one week and did not shorten the number of games a school could play. The ones that had an open date went out and filled them, so that meant more games every Friday."
Also contributing to this week's officials shortage is that for the first time this season, there is a full slate of games in the area. No teams are out with COVID-19 issues, and no teams have a bye week this week.
Riley said his district has three more games than it could handle, as does District 4, and District 2 barely has enough officials to cover this week's games.
"Everybody was scared to death that COVID was going to come in and wipe their season out, so everyone wanted to get in as many games as they could, not only for the revenue but for kids, because they want to play football," Riley said. "So you understand it even though it creates a heck of a problem for you."
